How do you find great remote workers? Does your recruitment process consist of posting an ad on a job marketplace and waiting for the perfect candidate to apply?
There are plenty of hiring strategies to use, but this method is not the best move these days.
It's like signing up for Tinder and getting hundreds of matches while your competition meets their match through a trustworthy mutual friend. You can still find "the one," but it'll take a lot more time, money, and effort.
A remote team is only as good as the people in it. So if you want to work with great talent, you need a strong recruitment process.
Here are three of the most effective hiring strategies you can use to find great remote workers and build a strong and talented team:
I've worked with many businesses, and one of the first questions they ask me is, "Whom should I hire first?"
Now, let's delve deeper into what your organizational structure looks like.
Are you the center of your team? Do you:
If you handle most of these things, you’re a huge bottleneck for your team. Entrepreneurs are ideas people. You come up with goals, plans, and solutions for a profit. You don't have to train every team member or answer questions that don't involve you from the get-go.
So what works best is to hire from the top, down. But what do I mean by that?
To hire from the top, down means your first hire must employ the rest of the team and run the future team.
There are two reasons for this:
So again, remove yourself as the bottleneck and hire someone you can trust to hire and run the rest of the team. If you need a reason why you should hire a team, check this out.
This is next question I often get asked and I have two choices for you:
Once you're ready to find your first hire, here are three things you should consider first:
Among these three, budget is the most pressing factor for entrepreneurs. Do you already have a figure in mind? For your first hire, you can choose either of these two, depending on your budget:
Now, if budget is not an issue or your top concern, you can choose based on the candidate's skill set.
Copywriting is central to marketing and success. It touches everything. In every single campaign, you're going to have words—either on a page, video, social media, email sequence, and so on.
Copywriting translates into many other good things that can bring to the business as well. It builds your image, brings out the personality of your brand, and boosts your digital marketing game.
Even if ultimately this person won't be doing all the copywriting, they do need to understand what compelling copy looks like.
They need to be able to understand how to put a message together because if your team leader can't communicate effectively, it'll negatively impact the internal team and everything you put out into the marketplace.
Marketing has become much more technical. You've got CRM systems, content management systems, websites, and landing pages.
Technophobes (anyone who's scared of technology) won't succeed in this role. You need someone who's willing to be trained to learn how to use different platforms. You also want them to implement systems. Learn more here.
As I said, you need someone who has leadership skills because your first hire is in charge of hiring and running your remote team.
As your team leader, they're going to be responsible for the delivery of your projects. You want to make sure they're able to manage your team and deliver projects on time and on budget.
Trust me, an arrogant, know-it-all person can bring down a team. I've always found that the best hires are always teachable and coachable. You need someone who can learn new concepts, accept new ways of doing things, and just run with it.
It might sound cliché, but you need your first hire to be a self-starter. You need someone who can work autonomously without needing to be constantly babysat and asked how things are going all of the time.
Communication serves as the foundation of every facet of your business. You need someone who understands the grounds of their work, who's willing to reach out for help when they need it, and who can create a positive work environment within the team.
As the business owner, your role is to always look at the big picture. It’s up to your remote assistant to pay close attention to all of the small particulars when working on projects. This results in high-quality work with little to no errors.
English is the most widely spoken and written language in the world. So, if your first hire doesn't know English (or the language you do business in) well, they can't effectively communicate with you and your team.
Like I said, you need tech-savvy people who're willing to learn how to use new systems and equipment.
Look for a dependable remote assistant. Find someone who can deliver within the deadline and create high-quality deliverables you’ve agreed upon.
Growth potential is an important quality in your first hire, and willingness to learn shows that capability. This person must be willing to undergo training or mentoring for career progression.
I believe that you should hire on attitude first instead of experience or skill level. Why? The idea is to hire good people who are open to learning new things—people who are not stuck in their old ways of working.
To give you a better idea, consider hiring someone who's a bit more of a blank slate. They've got a great attitude, are willing to learn, and are open to new ways of doing things. You just need to train them to do things the way you want them done.
So, don't hire. Invest.
You should invest a lot of time and money in training your team.
“Now what if they leave?” people always ask me.
Let's turn it around.
"What if you don't train them and they stay?"
That's going to be a bigger loss for you. You'll be in a world of pain if your team doesn't know what they're doing and they stay in the business.
So, invest in them. And the other thing is, if you’re treating people decently and you've got a fun work environment, it's unlikely that people are going to leave unless they have major life changes.
If you want to find great talent, start by letting your network know you're hiring. I actually found my team leader through my network. All I did was write a job description, post it, and wait for referrals to come. You can also use referrals to get new business. Back to hiring.
Then, my team leader hired everyone else. It's the most efficient and cost-effective way to look for top talent. Putting trust in your team leader just shows that you're involving them in your company’s growth.
Aside from referrals, you can also post on platforms like LinkedIn, UpWork, and Onlinejobs.ph.
Rather than waiting for great talent to miraculously discover your business and beg for a job, redirect your efforts to strategically sourcing them. So to recap, you must:
Sourcing top talent is essential to the future of your business. If you want to get two steps ahead of your competition, hire the best candidates in the market because a solid, dependable, flexible team is the backbone of a successful business.
But finding great talent is only the first step. Now you need to build a work culture that makes them want to log on each day and do good work. To learn more about how to create that awesome work culture, check out this link.
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